You are here

Environment Events

The future of global development is dependent on connecting people with diverse expertise and making futures analysis at the policy level implementable on the ground, concluded a panel of experts speaking at the Atlantic Council on December 17 for a public event on “Building the Future of Global Development.”

In 2008 and 2010, the price of many basic food stuffs soared, sparking a series of riots and food crises around the world. People in the poorest countries – those living with the smallest margins – were most affected, while the economies of developed nations were able to absorb the price changes. According to Notre Dame’s Global Adaptation Index, how climate change will impact different countries depends not only on their vulnerability to its physical changes, but also their ability to absorb these impacts.

This roundtable will connect federal agencies hoping to initiate or expand open innovation projects with leaders in citizen science, who are engaging the public participates in scientific research through lab and field work, crowdsourcing platforms, and online games. Opening remarks by Kumar Garg, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and keynote by Bob Perciasepe, EPA Deputy Administrator.

“The rate of speed of change in the global oceans are greater than [that] of any time in known history,” said Karen Sack of the Pew Charitable Trust, speaking at the Wilson Center on November 13. She was joined by Paul Schopf, professor of oceanography and associate dean for research and computing at George Mason University, and Libby Jewett, director of the Ocean Acidification Programs at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to discuss the latest State of the Ocean Report.

Sudan’s pastoralists gained infamy during the conflict in Darfur last decade, when outsiders described the violence as a result of competition between climate-stressed, semi-nomadic herders and sedentary farmers. But Sudan’s pastoralists may not be as fragile as previously thought and could even hold the key to survival for similar groups in Africa, said a panel of experts at the Wilson Center on November 13.

At this meeting, two experts will explore the drivers and impacts of China’s distant fishing fleets and the difficulties in regulating multi-national and multi-species fisheries across large ocean areas.

Global food price spikes in 2008 and again in 2011 coincided with a surge of political unrest in low- and middle-income countries. Governments and philanthropic foundations have begun redoubling efforts to resuscitate agricultural research and technology transfer, as well as to accelerate the modernization of food value chains to deliver high quality food inexpensively, faster, and in greater volumes to urban consumers. But is this enough?

Next year, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted by the United Nations after the Millennium Declaration, are set to expire. As they wind down, the global development community is taking stock. While there have been great strides toward accomplishing many of the goals set forth in 2000, there has been little headway in ensuring environmental sustainability, said Melinda Kimble, senior vice president of the United Nations Foundation. Which raises the question: What should change for the next set of global development goals, which are supposed to be even more environmentally focused – the “Sustainable Development Goals?”